


Learning the Ropes

by LosttotheHoping



Series: The Syndrome [2]
Category: Naruto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-18 02:43:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LosttotheHoping/pseuds/LosttotheHoping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now she’s alone, and Hidan is gone.  There’s no one to protect her, there’s something creeping after her, and a part of her knows that if she falters, Hidan will leave her to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning the Ropes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Azhwi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azhwi/gifts).



Time passes.  Sometimes quickly, other times it slows down to a heart breaking pace.  Hinata doesn’t leave the Akatsuki compound for a year.  She spends some of the time with Hidan, and even has a civil conversation with Kakuzu (she suggests a money trick her father used to save, and Kakuzu suddenly likes her a lot more).  Occasionally, she is able to sit with the others.

Konan will talk to her like they’ve known each other for years.  Hinata thinks that the other woman is glad to finally have a girl to talk to, and not just girly men.  This opinion is further enforced after Konan takes up her hair and braids it idly while they’re discussing strategy.  It’s not the last time to happen, either, because Konan does notice how Hinata doesn’t even protest.

She’s starved for the attention too.

Tobi is strange.  Sometimes he’s quiet, in an absent way as he stares out a window or spaces out near a wall.  Then he’s loud and exuberant like Naruto.  Hinata can never stand to be around him then, but when he’s quiet, she barely notices he’s there.

She has a feeling that he never forgets her.

Deidara-san tends to be a bit on the wild side.  He’ll be laughing and taunting one minute, and then switch to blind, white rage the next.  His fingers are long, and slender, and she admits that she finds him attractive sometimes.  Mostly because – weird mouths aside – she likes his hands.

He reminds her a bit of Kiba, when he’s in a good mood, and she’s even managed to get him to talk about what he likes to her.  Not that it’s hard to do, all she has to do is say that she sketches sometimes.  
  
Then the blond is ranting about how true art is meant to be brief, final.  He offers to show her, but Tobi suddenly appears and tries to glomp him.  Hinata escapes in the ensuing scuffle.

Hinata can _never_ stand to be around Uchiha Itachi.  She fears him, more than she fears any of the others.  She cringes when he passes her in the hall, and breathes a sigh of relief when he’s gone.

Of course, these encounters with the other members are far between.  The group still has an agenda, and they are usually gone.  For the first year, Hinata tends to get left behind a lot, though she usually has at least Konan to keep her company.  Since they’re in the Rain hideout, where the woman lives, she doesn’t leave unless she has an important mission to carry out for her mysterious leader.

Still, in all, it’s a rather pleasant year.

xXx

Soon enough, Hidan’s lessons – which had been few and far due to his own duties – pick up when he tells her she’ll start traveling with him.  He teaches her about blood, and pain, and pleasure.  He tells her that magic, glory, awaits believers.

He teaches her everything, the incantations, the rituals, the rules.  Jashin demands blood, though Hidan says the God isn’t particular about what kind.  This relieves Hinata, especially when Hidan explains that he doesn’t usually waste the blood of random bystanders.  He tends to only offer the blood of his enemies.

It’s a good idea, she thinks, and perhaps she should consider doing it too.

A month after she makes her first kill – a Sound nin outside the border of Hi no Kuni, leading into Yu no Kuni – Hidan tells her that she’s ready to be taught the most important lesson.  He takes her to to the marshes in Numa no Kuni, strips her naked and leaves her with only the words, “Have no fear.”

Now she’s alone, and Hidan is gone.  There’s no one to protect her, but she holds onto those words like a security blanket.  She walks.  There are critters occasionally, snakes sliding through the springy moss, that snap at her ankles hungrily when she pauses.  A leech falls onto her shoulder at one point, but she swallows her fear and jerks it off, throwing it away.

There’s something creeping after her, stalking her through the waters, and Hinata skitters away from it.  A part of her knows that if she falters, Hidan will leave her to die, and that is not what she wants.  She wants him to be proud of her, to kiss her on the mouth in celebration.  She wants to feel pleasure at his fingertips, wants him to make love to her.

She knows it won’t happen if she shows fear, and so she continues to walk.  She doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do, but she is expecting an attack at any time.  “ _Have no fear_ ,” spoken as if expecting her to be gobbled up.

Truthfully, she feels vulnerable, walking through the marshes without clothing like this.  What if she’s seen, spotted by a native?  But the natives don’t get the chance.

She’s climbing a tree, seeking the yellow fruit in its boughs, hand reaching out for it… when something slick and wet wraps around her leg,slime curling up her skin.  She yelps as she’s dragged down, making a loud _splat_ when encountering the watery soil.

Hinata thrashes, her only weapon her chakra.  Something grabs her wrist, and she kicks out with her free leg.  She escapes and scrambles up a nearby tree, crouching on a branch as she coughs out the marshwater in her lungs.  Everything is absolutely still, the only sound that of the wind lightly blowing above the canopy.

Not even the marsh life speaks any longer, fearing the predator that grasped at her.  Hinata reaches out and grabs a smaller branch, breaking it off of the tree and pulling it close.  She snaps pieces off until it’s pointed at the end, and then she waits.

The silence starts to lull lesser creatures into a false sense of security, and somewhere a toad croaks.  Nearby, a bird sings uncertainly, chirping a call to his brothers.  Stillness slowly comes to life.

Then something rises up out of the deeper waters beneath her.  It’s large, and so dark green it’s almost black.  Razor sharp teeth gleam wetly as it opens a cat-like maw, releasing a horrible scream like a hundred dying mammals.  An incongruously placed paw reaches out for her, slimy tentacles thrashing against the moss and spraying her with water.

Without hesitation, Hinata screams back and leaps, driving the pointed end of the branch into its skull, determination vicious and animalistic.  She breaks it off, leaving it there, and ignores the sting of claws in her thigh.  She leaps away, holding what little remains of the branch before her like a shield.

Hinata watches the creature die, and then she collapses from blood-loss in the marshwater.

xXx

When she wakes, she’s still there, the forest life loud around her, the cold corpse of the predator not far away.  It looks like something that the gods put together out of leftover bits from other animals, and Hinata wonders if its alone, or if it has some sort of mate or pack.

But she isn’t afraid.  She’s survived, she’s killed it and lived without fear.  The feeling is beautiful, pure and sweet like the taste of blood in her mouth.  Blood?  Ah, she must have bitten her tongue when she fell.

_Speaking of falling…_ Pale eyes lower to stare at her gouged out thigh, and she momentarily boggles at how deep it is.  She shouldn’t be alive, hell she shouldn’t even be awake with this kind of injury.  Unless…   _Unless I passed Jashin’s test_.

The cold clarity comes to her without any effort at all.  “ _Have no fear_ ,” and the unspoken, _and you will never die_.  She’s like him now; she’s a Jashinist.

Pearl-colored eyes lift to stare at the thick canopy above her head, and she smiles faintly.  “I’m yours, now, Jashin-sama.”

Hidan’s waiting when she limps from the marshes, and he grins excitedly when she beams at him.  “You passed!”

**“** I did,” she replies happily, and doesn’t resist when he lifts her up and spins her around.  Then he kisses her, and somehow she forgets about the mud all over her, or the fact that she’s naked.  Nothing else matters at all.

xXx

She and Hidan are separated, some months after that.  He’s trapped back in a valley, fighting Suna nin, and she’s forced off toward the cliffs by others.  She kills them, and races toward the caves she knows are there, because there is backup coming for the dead, and she needs to buy time to figure out a way around them.

It’s on the cliff edge that she realizes she’s backed into a corner, as it were.  Naruto steps out of the foliage, staring at her in disbelief.  “Hinata-chan?” he says uncertainly.  His eyes are lowered, focused on the cloak she wears these days, and then he meets her gaze.  “I don’t understand.”

She blinks at him bemusedly before dropping into a familiar stance.  “Don’t you?” she asks.  “Isn’t it obvious now?  Don’t worry about it, Naruto.”

He probably thinks that’s the first time she’s not called him Naruto-kun, and it’s certainly the first time that she hasn’t fainted around him.  “No, it can’t be,” he says, looking so _betrayed_.

Hinata feels a laugh bubbling up in her chest.  “You really are just an idiot, aren’t you?  You’re a fucking moron, Naruto.”  
**  
****“** Naruto, around her neck,” Sakura says suddenly, from the shadows.

His blue, blue eyes lower, and narrow.  “ _No_ , that can’t be- What has that bastard done to you!?”

She smiles at him, the pendant seeming heavier with his notice.  “Nothing I didn’t ask him to.  And when I asked, he gave me everything I wanted,” she tells him happily.  “He’s given me the world, and immortality.  I’ll never die, Naruto.  That’s what he’s given me…  It’s beautiful.”

Naruto looks sick, like he isn’t sure whether he should vomit or not.  “Come home, Hinata-chan.  Come back with me…”

**“** What?”  She’s honestly surprised by the offer, but quickly reminds herself that he only cares because he’s selfish.  Naruto has always been selfish that way, always hated the thought that others would walk away from him for their own destinies.  Look at Sasuke, and at Neji.  They lived their lives in ways that he didn’t like, and he’d gone so far as to change things.

**“** You can come back,” he says, reaching out for her.  “We’ll face them together.  They won’t be angry, it’s-”

She slaps his hand away, stepping back until her heel dangles over the edge of the cliff, only her toes keeping purchase.  “You don’t understand yet, do you, Naruto?  I’m not the same person you knew…  Once, I loved you, Naruto, do you see?  And every time you turned me away…”

The blond is staring at her like she’s struck him across the face, and she knows it’s cruel, but it’s also necessary for him to know.  She doesn’t want him to chase her like he does Sasuke, because she’s _happy_ now.

**“** Naruto, he didn’t.  He loves me too,” she continues, voice soft, and mentally adds, _I hope._ **“** I won’t ever leave him behind again.  I can’t go with you.”

Naruto lunges forward, and she lets her foot slip deliberately.  His voice follows her over the cliff, screaming her name.

xXx

Hinata isn’t at all surprised to find herself at home when she wakes.  Not the home she grew up in, but the home she’s made for herself in the last year or so.  Tobi is leaning over her, poking at her arm.  He notes her state of consciousness and giggles.  “You’re awake, Hinata-chan!”  He prods her arm again and she winces.  “Does that hurt?  That was very reckless of you, you know!”

**“** I wouldn’t have died,” she tells him bemusedly, and tries to sit up.  But she aches all over and can’t manage it at all, so she relaxes again.  “Where’s Hidan?”

**“** Oh…”  Tobi gives her a helpless shrug.  “We haven’t heard from him or Kakuzu-san yet.”

She isn’t worried, not really.  She knows that absolutely nothing in the world could ever defeat Hidan, or Kakuzu.  The both of them are positively invincible.  “Okay.  You’ll tell me when they get back?” she asks sleepily.

Tobi nods his head quickly.  “Yes, of course, Hinata-chan!” he chirps.  “We will wake you right away!”

It occurs to her, as she’s drifting off, that it is a little odd for Tobi to be here with her.  But it’s not so odd as to keep her awake, and soon enough unconsciousness claims her like clinging fog.

She doesn’t know another thing.

xXx

Her body heals quickly, the painful moments of consciousness few and far between because unlike her lovely Hidan, she’s not a masochist and doesn’t know how to stand it.  But those moments tend to stick with her, even while she sleeps.  They bring about horrific nightmares.

Sometimes, Itachi-san is there when she wakes, glaring almost venomously at Tobi, who has kept vigil at her side for some reason she can’t even fathom.  There’s something odd between the two of them, but she can never understand what, and she likes Tobi a bit better than she likes Itachi-san anyway.

The dreams after those times are full of walking corpses and ravens pecking out her eyes.  She screams so much while she dreams of this that the others are forced to tie her down until she wakes again.  Eventually, someone makes the connection and Itachi is barred from her room.

She’s a bit grateful for it, even if she feels shame for the fear.

The news of Hidan’s defeat comes while she’s awake, but no one else seems to notice it.  Konan is in the room, whispering with Tobi about it.  Tobi is irritated about the news and blames Kakuzu, who has also apparently perished.

Hinata dreams of bridges made from snakeskin, dissolving as she falls through them.  She dreams of Jashin-sama, pale fingers caressing her face while he tells her that she has to find her beloved and save him.  This is a dream she can’t awaken from, and she doesn’t want to.  Jashin-sama is so wonderful, his form so intangible, almost as if it isn’t there…

Her eyes open and she’s alone.  Hinata gets up and slips from the house, ignoring the pain.  She has to ignore the pain.  She has to find Hidan.

xXx

She follows an invisible trail.  Her body aches but she doesn’t stop, doesn’t rest.  Jashin-sama is telling her where to go, where he is, and when she comes to a stop in Hi no Kuni, the trail fades.  She drops to her knees, pulling out a kunai.

And she hesitates.  Her body hurts so badly.  It _hurts_ … she’s pretty sure that though she’s healed a lot, she hasn’t completely recovered from the fall off the cliff.  But…   _Hidan_ …

She digs.  Life is nothing but pain, and sweat and effort.  It’s dirt beneath her fingernails, tainted black from her connection to the Earth.  The sun has no presence here, no place.  It’s always darkness, always pain, always longing for more, for Hidan.  Longing.  She’s longing for him so hard that nothing else can come between them.

Perhaps she passes out once, but as soon as she’s awake again, she’s digging.  Tears have long since dried up, because they have no place in this either.

She works until she can’t move any more.  No, she could still move.  She could still work, but in the darkness, her limbs won’t obey her.

**“** Hinata.”

A voice, and it’s so familiar.  Where has she heard it before, where?

She stares down at the dirt below her knees, her head clearing a little.  She realizes she’s running a fever, and she’s been suffering some sort of delirium.  But her fingers are closed around a hand, a very familiar hand that clutches back at hers.

The voice calls out again.  “I can’t let you continue.  I have to arrest you.”

But she smiles, because she has Hidan’s hand.  She’ll figure a way out of this.  She has to, because this is Hidan’s hand and he’s _alive_.

**“** Grab her and lock her with the chakra cuffs,” the voice says to someone else.

Hidan’s hand tightens on hers, and she squeezes back as best she can, fighting suddenly against the kagemane.  A part of her realizes she must be on the Nara lands, and that’s why he’s here.

It’s Shikamaru that has her, she knows.   _I have to escape…_

Someone lands beside her, grabs her arms and jerks them behind her back.  She hears Shikamaru hiss above them.  “Oy, watch it, tosan,” he complains.

Hinata’s forced to wait, but now she knows where Hidan is.

xXx

When Hinata wakes, she’s in a cell, and standing at the bars is Neji.  His eyes are watching her, and his face is without expression.  Pale arms are lax against his side, hanging uselessly.  “Hinata-sama,” he says, deep voice echoing in the empty room.

She grimaces as she moves to sit up.  “Neji…”  Her cloak is gone, as are her weapons, and her slashed hitai-ate.  She’s left in only the mesh undershirt, her underwear and the pair of ninja-issue slacks she’d been wearing before.  All her hidden weapons are missing, and there are a pair of chakra cuffs on her wrists, limiting her chakra to the very least necessary to live.  That is to say, she feels like a newborn kitten.

Her injuries have been healed, though, which is a plus.  The chakra she can still feel a little bit is familiar.  It’s Sakura’s.

**“** Why?”

The single, broken word is all it takes to snap her attention back onto her cousin.  He’s staring at her still, looking a bit lost and a bit betrayed and a bit as if someone had dragged the rug out from beneath his feet.  He doesn’t understand either, and it drives her a little crazy.

Why can’t they see it?  Why can’t they understand that she does it out of love, just like she’s done every other thing, made every other choice her entire life?  She became a ninja because she loved her father and her cousin.  She became stronger because she loved Naruto.  She became a traitor because she loves Hidan.  And because he loves her back.

**“** You will never understand,” she says softly, lowering her eyes.  “I can’t make you understand.”  Because he didn’t want to understand.

Her chest hurts at the thought, but she will not let her feelings control her.

**“** Fine,” he seethes, lashing out because that’s all he knows what to do.   “Stay here and rot!”  And then he’s gone, just like the rest of them.

xXx

Nobody comes for her, from Akatsuki, but she hadn’t expected anyone to do so anyway.  Maybe Hidan would have, but he’s buried twenty feet under, being smothered constantly.  She stares in horror at the floor when she thinks of this, and she sits and waits.

Days pass.  Weeks.  Months.  Naruto comes sometimes, and Neji lurks around the edges occasionally.  Once she even sees Shino, standing in the shadows, staring at her without emotion.

And still she waits patiently, eats the food they give her because she won’t die anyway, and waits.  When Jashin demands blood in her dreams, she has to make due with rats, and fervent prayers in the night when no one is paying attention.

Then she wakes up in the middle of the night, a hand over her mouth and a familiar scent in her nose.  Kiba.  “I can’t watch this anymore,” he whispers, voice desperate and choked with emotion.  “Hinata, please.  Stop resisting.  Just give them what they want!”

**“** But they haven’t asked for anything,” she whispers back when he moves his hand.

He just stares at her, uncomprehending.  “Haven’t…?  Why?” he asks, disbelief covering his familiar face.

She’s a little sad, watching him like this.  “Because I won’t give it to them,” she replies, frowning.  “Kiba, please understand…  It’s not that I don’t love the people here anymore…  I love Konoha, and I love my friends-”

**“** Then come back!” he yelps, and then pauses to look around nervously.

Sighing, she sits up and shakes her head.  “I can’t.  I won’t.  I don’t want to.  I love Hidan, Kiba, and he loves me.”

**“** He’s a murderer!” he snarls furiously.

**“** So are you.”

There’s no answer for that.  He’s stunned into silence by the answer, and still can’t find an answer when she quietly whispers, “So am I.”

How can he deny that?

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters and Naruto do not belong to me, but to Masashi Kishimoto. I am responsible for creating the situation, and the storyline only. Please do not take and use without my express permission. Thank you.


End file.
